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Lynda Wilson to Step Down as Clark GOP Chair

by lewwaters

Lynda Wilson

Clark County Republican Party Chair Lynda Wilson will resign as Chair of the party effective January 31, according to a press release from the party issued earlier this morning. Wilson plans to focus her attention and energy on her upcoming campaign for the 17th Legislative District seat currently held by Democrat Monica Stonier.

In a letter addressed to the Executive Board, Wilson praised the party for their efforts and gains over the past year, citing their fund raising and technical future of the party.

Vice-Chair Steven Nelson, in accordance with the newly adopted party by-laws will be contacting PCO’s to schedule a special meeting where a new party chair will be selected.

Nelson will be unable to run for chair due to commitments made to his family and it is unknown at this time just who will throw their hat in the ring to lead the Clark County Republicans.

Lynda Wilson took the reins of the party at a troubled time and made great strides in correcting divisions. While not every division has ended, many were and the party has been running smoother than anticipated when she was selected to be the chair.

Her experience chairing the party will be invaluable to her in serving as a State Representative.

It is this blogger’s hope that the party will select someone as level-headed as Lynda Wilson to the chair that will keep the party headed in the direction she and Steven Nelson set it on this past year.

While it is true that the 2013 off-year election results were dismal, it cannot be forgotten that the local so called “newspaper” was on a vendetta against conservative candidates, even though they were all allegedly “nonpartisan.”

The date of the special PCO meeting will be announced in the near future as will those interested in being candidates for party chair.

I wish all good luck for Lynda Wilson in her quest for the legislature and thank her for her faithful service as Republican Party Chair in Clark County this past year.

9 Comments to “Lynda Wilson to Step Down as Clark GOP Chair”

This was a good decision… running the chair position while running a campaign would be impossible. Being a candidate is hard and requires every ounce of energy and most minutes of your time. This way she will have a better chance of winning!

I don’t know who I’ll vote for yet, but am leaning strongly towards Monica Stonier. Lynda’s unfortunate decision to publicly chastise Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler for voting to end the Obama shutdown doesn’t sit well with me. I think it was a precipitous, foolhardy effort, and damaging to the conservative movement. I think she and the others on the board were off their rockers to attack the Congresswoman like that. Lew, you state that Wilson has healed divisions in the local Republican party, but Lynda and her cohorts are the cause of divisions within the conservative electorate. I can’t understand the purpose of bringing division between conservatives because one of Jaime’s votes wasn’t ‘conservative enough’.

Craig. Ok I can accept that you didn’t like the very respectfully worded admonishment to Jaime. However no respectable Conservative would ever respond to that by voting for a liberal. Now you are going to say she is a moderate Democrat. Not true. She is in a swing district. She votes liberal and then gets a pass by her leadership on some of the tougher votes for her district. (when they don’t need her vote)

Lynda Wilson is a conservative yes. But she is also a thoughtful, successful business owner in Clark County. She runs circles around Monica on her understanding of the issues. I don’t believe you when you say you are a Republican conservative. If so, you would never consider voting for a Democrat and increasing their majority in Olympia. Sorry it just doesn’t fly.

The larger problem is that many “conservative leaning” voters fail to submit their ballots when they’re “lukewarm” about a particular candidate. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for overly ideologic candidates to turn of important portions of the conservative element in the electorate. Looking at the Romney debacle, certain moves by the mainstream Republican establishment to silence Ron Paul supporters at the national convention (where Romney had already won his nomination in the primaries) probably kept one to two million Libertarian voters away from the polls (at least as far as a vote for Romney was concerned) — and the evangelical Christians appeared to also stay home, costing another two million or more votes due to myths, rumors, and discomfort with the “cult” Mormon religion practiced by Romney. (Combined, this was the margin of victory.)

A column by Karl Rove in today’s Wall Street Journal makes the point that neither party can now win elections only by a highly effective effort to “bring out the base” as independent voters now exceed those who identify themselves as either Democrats or Republicans. (Rove also notes that (sadly) these so called independents are devoid of any consistent and organized belief system.)

While conditions here in Clark County may not be as awful as the national picture, it is still highly important to generate appeal from both the libertarian/financial oriented conservatives as well as those with a more religious orientation. Since there are far more independents than religious voters, it’s likely that a slant toward independents is more important than satisfying those with strong religious views (that may well turn off the independent voters).

Although, I personally have been quite consistent in my voting patterns, supporting (and voting for) the more conservative candidates at every election. (I have not failed to vote in any election (except one) since I was first able to register to vote at age 21. The one exception was a city (only) election where I had failed to note the correct election date in my calendar.) I have difficulty understanding those who do not inform themselves about elections, issues and candidates and then exercise their right to vote. Yet, the statistics continue to show that large numbers fail to register to vote … and even among registered voters, many fail to submit their ballots — which is exceptionally hard to understand in Clark County where ballots are mailed directly to voter’s homes and can easily be returned by mail.

As for Ms. Herrera, I am disappointed with her as a Congresswoman. I understand that as a “back bencher” and freshman member that she has little political clout in the House. On the other hand, she does seem to have simply “gone along to get along” by following the lead of the establishment House leadership. I would have preferred seeing a little more independence and more efforts at cutting federal spending (for example, she could have made specific efforts to pull the plug on the Federal share of funding for the CRC). Frankly, when I’ve corresponded with Ms. Herrera the responses have been the usual mushy non-positional, feel good stuff I got from the Democrats representing my former home district. I would have more respect for a Congressperson who would state clearly a position, even if I disagreed, with a clear expression of why he/she held that position.

Chuck, I don’t believe that Monica Stonier is as liberal as you suggest. I’ve met with Monica and have had numerous email conversations with her. Granted, she is not as conservative as I’d like to see – especially on educational issues, but she’s no wild-eyed liberal either.

On the other hand, I’ve never met Lynda Wilson. The only thing I really know about her is the letter I referred to. I will pay close attention during the campaign.

Whoever gets elected should be a person who can reach a consensus with other legislators to get work done in Olympia. And by ‘work’, I mean hold the ground on taxes, enter into no agreements with Oregon regarding the CRC (Salem is going to want Olympia to collect tolls for them), and reform education to kill the stranglehold unions have on the state.

And therein lies my biggest problem with Monica, Craig. Her idea of “reforms” would strengthen the stranglehold unions, especially the teachers unions, hold on the state.

Even the Lazy C noted that when they declined to endorse her in the 2010 primary, saying, “Stonier, a teacher, quickly and clearly specifies public education as her top priority. She obviously has the background and expertise for that. But she also sings pitch-perfect the talking point serenades of the Washington Education Association, the teachers’ union. Stonier shows no inclination to force public employees to incur the same pay and benefits sacrifices that private-sector workers have suffered. Her big campaign advantages over Hash are party connections and political clout.”

I do not doubt she is a very nice person, but I do not see where her intents to bolstering the teachers unions have diminished, even though she claims so.

There is, in fact, one major reason to vote for GOP candidates: leadership of the legislature depends on a majority.

Stonier voted against her caucus on the CRC Scam, which was likely an orchestrated, reading of the tea leaves kind of thing. But she was also a vote for Frank Chopp as Speaker and all of the neo-communists in the House as committee chiars.

Herrera is unfit to be elected dog catcher and the GOP should have “Boldted” her as an attention getting device. Hopefully, the simple idiot won’;t run for re-election.